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APOLOGY. 

These letters were found by Riley the junk 
dealer in the dump that is situated just back 
of the canning factory across the street from 
McCarthy's lot. These dainty epistles were, no 
doubt, meant only for the eyes of " Mike", but as 
the love-letters of kings, queens, jacks and Eng- 
lish women have been cast upon the public, we 
feel sure that Nora will forgive us for handing 
her "billets-doux" down to posterity in cold, 
black type. 

F. C. V. 

Boston, Sept. i, 



The Love Letters 

of 

An Irishwoman 



F. C. VoorHies 



^ 



THe 

Mtittial Book Company 

Boston, MassacHtisetts 



iLiBRASYof 00N3R£SSJ 


■ fwu Qopies 


deceived 


MAR 


1905 


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Copyright iqoi 
The Motctal Book Companv, 



THc Love Letters of aa 
IrisH woman. 



LETTER I. 



Mike, my pet, — 

Here I am sitting in my boodwar on the third 
floor using my trunk for a writing desk and as I 
sit here I can look out my window and see Kee- 
gan's goat on McCarthy's lot, calmly chewing a 
red flannel shirt as he gazes up toward the broad 
blue dome of the heavens. Oh, that dear goat. 
I could dash out there acrost the lots, jump the 
dump and cast my arms around his silky neck, 
then I could gaze into his dreamy blinkers and 
kiss him, oh, a thousand times. Why ? Do you 
ask me why I am so moved by a goat, I who 
have been brought up with a goat in the kitchen 
most of the time, well better people than me 
have been moved by a goat before now, and 
Mike dear, this goat is not like other goats. 

5 



6 THe Lrov-e I««tters of 

When I look at him it brings the vision of your 
dear face before me. He reminds me of my 
own true Mike, because he has the same style 
side board and chin whiskers that my Mike has, 
the only difference is that his are white and yours 
are red. Yes, his are white just like yours will 
be when you have grown to a ripe old age, if you 
don't fall off a ladder someday with a hod of 
bricks on your back and break your neck before 
you have time to get ripe. Some days I get all 
in a flutter when I think of the perils of your 
ocupation. I can shut my eyes and see you 
climbing round by round up to the roof of a 
house with half a chimbly full of bricks in your 
hod. One unsteady step and my own boy with 
the auborn hair would be dashed headlong and 
headfirst into eternity, but we must not think of 
such misfortunes, we who are to be so happy 
together forever, if you can only get a raise in 
your wages. And when we are old Mike dear, 
I will be such a good wife. I will fill that little 
old T.D. for you and pull your boots off for you 
when you come home from work. You will 
never have to chase the goats out of the parlor 
or feed the pigs. I will do all these little domes- 
tic duties and you can sit in the kitchen and 
smoke until dewmsday with never a kick from 
your Nora. Oh, I can hardly wait until we have 
a large four room house of our own, Mike. 
How pretty we will make it look. I can shut 



Ax%. IrisH'Woman* 



my eyes and see the parlor now. A green sofa, 
two nice red covered chairs, a beautiful wreath 
of leaves on the wall and a crayon picture of you 
and me. When we can afford it we will get one 
of those bunches of wax flowers or fruit under a 
glass c-ase to put on a little table. Won't it be 
divine ? I will keep it just as tidy as can be and 
we will never use it except on Sunday. But 
no more of this beautiful dream today for I must 
go down and milk the goat. Be a good boy 
darling and don't forget to slide into the front 
stoop easy tomorrow night so the old man won't 
get on. He always hits in the kitchen. Load 
of love from 

Nora 



THe I^ov* I^etters of 



LETTTER 2. 

Mike, my dearest, — 

As I take my pencil in hand, dear, I am sitting 
in my easie chair enskoused in the beautiful 
fancie pillows that were knocked down to you at 
Riley's sale, 30 cents I think and as I shut my 
eyes I try to think they are your knees, my 
sweet, auburn haired darling, but they are too 
soft. Your manly knees are the hardest I ever 
sat on. I tell you, Mike, climbing the ladder 
makes your mussles like steal. Well, dear you 
dont know how unhappy I am when you are 
away from me. I walk around the house with a 
fidgety feeling just across my stomick, I thought 
it was because I had been eating qucumbers, 
but my brother who works for Dr. Smith, says 
it is a simtom of nervessness. Sure, being that 
he is working for a doctor. Pat is on to all these 
diseases. You are never out of my mind, Mike, 



An IrisKwoman. 9 

and this morning while I was working out in the 
yard I was thinking how fine you looked in that 
^1$. no more no less suit last night and that 
same nervessness feeling came across me and I 
sighed and nearly chocked to death with a clothes 
pin. Oh, my dear boy, I'd love you even though 
you were an A. P. A. or didn't belong to the 
union. Even if you refused to take me to the 
hod-carriers socials I'd love you Mike. Now 
Mike when are you coming to call again. You 
know mother and the old man are going to poor 
old O'Brien's wake next Wensday night and you 
can call then. I don't know why they don't like 
you, dear, except that father don't like red hair. 
He's prejewiced and I'll tell you why. You 
know father used to be on the force and in the 
same ward there were two other cops who had 
red hair. For some reason, the old man never 
tells why, these two reddies hated father and as 
they had a pull the old man didn't hold his job 
long. Ever since then he has been sour on red 
hair. If he only knew you, Mike, I know he 
would like you though. I love you, dear, red 
hair and all. Tho' your hair had an ''orange" hue 
I'd love you. You are my light-house. I feel like 
a frail young boat on the great sea of life, looking 
toward you to keep me from dashing to pieces 
on the treacherous rocks of adverseness. That 
last part I read in one of Laura Jeari Libbie's sole 
stirring novels. Now dear I must close this 



10 THe I^ove Letters of 



letter and go down in the yard and take in Mrs. 
Wilson's wash, that family must have money 
because Mr. Wilson had three pair of silk socks 
in the wash this week. He wears three pair of 
socks every week. Ain't that foolishness and 
waste, Mike.^ 

Think of me pet and each time you heave a 
brick in your hod remember that each hour I am 
away from you pains me as much as if a whole 
hod full of bricks were dumped on my young 
heart. Forever and ever 

Excuse pencil. Nora. 



Am IrisK-wromai*. 1^- 



LETTER 3. 

Mike mine, — 

Oh, Mike, I am xio good any more. My love 
for you distracts my attention from everything. 
Love has trickled into my system until I am 
soaKed with it and my thoughts drift to you 
morning noon and night. You can never realize 
how my young heart has opened to you like the 
dandelion on the green grass of our backyard 
opens to the noonday sunbeams. I am yours, all 
yours, and god rush the day along when you and I 
will be buckled together in the holy bonds of con- 
jugal bliss. As Walter Whitman said in his 
« Pieces of Grass." *Tell me not in mournful 
numbers, life is but an empty team.' My life, 
Mike dear, is far from being an empty team. ^ It 
is a dray full of happiness, bliss and painful joy- 
fulness. Mother says I am getting sentimental 
and wishy-washy because I read to many of 



12 THe I^o-v-e I^*tt«ir8 of 

those dear ten cent paper covered novels. It 
ain't that, sweet boy from the Emereld He, it 
ain't that that makes me sentimental. It is that 
I am wrapped up in my Irish lover. Wrapped 
up and tied with the rope of true affection. Ah, 
Mike there still clings to my shirt-waste the 
dainty perfume you always have. As I turn my 
head from right to left and back again, I can get 
whifs of that Navy Cut Plug you always smoke 
in that pet of a clay pipe I have so often heard 
you grind your teeth on. That little black pipe 
you have had so long, Mike dear. Do you love 
your own little Nora as well as you do that du- 
deen. I hope so for it would tear my young 
heart asunder to have anything have more of 
your affection, your love which I crave so much, 
than I get. You know you told, oh, oh, please 
excuse that awful blot Mike, but I always make 
blots when I write with ink. I know you will 
excuse it when I tell you how I did it. I was 
all of a sudden in a tremble sort of spell, no, I 
didn't have a chill or a fit or spasm, just a tremble 
feeling and all because I thought I could almost 
feel your strong arms once more around my 
waste, the way it was this way. You see the 
clock down stairs just struck eleven, oh, them 
strikes, how musical they are when they strike 
eleven, because as they peeled out the hour of 
eleven last night you had your strong right arm 
aroimd my wasp-like waste. Do you remember 



An IrisHivoman. 13 

what you were whispering in my ear just as the 
clock struck the hour ? These are your words 
** When we are married, dear, all I'll ask for out 
of my pay is forty-five cents each Saturday night 
twenty cents for four mustys at Hooligan's and 
twenty-five cents for a half pint to bring home 
on my hip." Oh, those sweet words of love. 
Now dearest of all, fare the well. I must go 
down and get brother Pat's stew ready for him. 
His grub hour is at half past eleven. 
Hods of love to my own from 

Nora. 



; 



THe I^rove Lfetters of 



LETTER 4. 

Mike, Mike, — 

Well, darling, this maming I went down town 
to do some buying. I went into one of tiiose 
large apartment stores and got all mixed up. I 
wanted to buy some muzlin with flowers on it 
for a shirt-waste and it took me two hours to 
find the counter, and then they didn't know what 
I wanted, but this ain't love I'm writing, so how 
is my boy to-day ? Something was the matter 
with you last night, dear, because when you 
were lighting your pipe you let the wind blow 
the match out. Something was wrong. See 
how I watch every move you make ? Say, Mike 
pet, this morning as I walked down town I saw 
that they have almost every other street torn up 
and Eyetalians are doing the work. It's wrong 
Mike, wrong. Them forenors are driving us out 
and I don't wonder you get indignent. It's a 



outrage, sure so it is. And say Mike, dear, 
whDe I was in town I saw the State house and it 
broughtyou before my mind's eye, not because 
I think you are going to be a polutician, though 
better men than you have been poluticians, so 
who can tell, but the reason you flashed before 
me was because the state house has a golded top 
sparkling in the sunshine. So have you dearest, 
my auburn haired pride and joy. How could I 
resist the temtaton of comparing my man with the 
grand and stately statehouse. I simply could'nt. 
Mike have you a temper ? I am sure you haven't 
and that you are always the same dosile dear I 
know, even though you've got red hair. The 
reason I speak of temper, dearest, is because 
father has such a dreadful one. Mother has to 
put up witn a awful lot and if 1 had a old 
man like that I'd paste him with a floor mop. 
Father just came in in a terrible rage. He was 
boiling up like an Irish Stew and it happened 
this way. Father went to a Dago barber shop 
down town to have his hair sliced and the fellow 
perswaded the old man that he needed a shave 
so father told him to sale in. The Dago did. 
When he had finished scraping the bristles off 
the old man's fiz, he began to soak him with 
towels full of red hot boiling water. The old 
man said the first one hurt and the second nearly 
killed him. When the Dago put on the third 
towel the old man jumped up and told him to 



16 THe LfOve I^etters of 

stick a fork in his cheek and see if it was done. 
Then father picked up his hat and collar and 
went out. The Dago is out 25 cents for a shave 
and a hair cut. Father hasn't cooled off yet. 
Now, Mike, dearest of all, you wouldn't make 
such a fuss over a hot towel would you and you 
wouldn't kick because I forgot to put dumplings 
in your soup like father does. 

Oh, darling, you will be here in a half hour so 
I must close this and mail it on my way to meet 
you. No one could love you like your 

Nora. 



Aa IrisH'woman. 



LETTER 5. 

My auborn-haired-own, — 

Again I take my pencil in hand to commune 
with my love who climbs the ladder. When I 
think of you dear and the sweet words of love 
you spoke into my ear last night my heart seems 
to turn over like a buckwheat on the griddle and 
and as each thought is of you you can see how 
well done my young heart must be, and love is the 
flame that burns in the stove of my buzum. Oh, 
Mike, dear ain't I a sentimental young thing and 
wouldn't I write love novels though, inspired by 
your true lovej You said in your letter that you 
thought I must copy some part from novels I am 
reading, but I don't dear. It all comes from my 
own little brain and heart. What do you think 
Mike, brother Jim came home today from New 
York, where he has been a bell-hopper at one of 
the swell hotels on Third Avenue. Oh but he 



M THe I^o"«^«^ Letters of 

does put on the airs. I felt like slapping him 
good and dazy when he said "This section of the 
country is behind the times. We are up-to-date 
in our section. The Irish run our town." Just 
as though us Irish didn't run lots of things around 
here from the police force down to the supreme 
cort. And he wears the funniest *' swell clothes " 
you ever saw. A dinky little coat with a belt 
like the dudes over in town wear. I like it be- 
cause it is short and will give you a good sight 
on the place to land a swift kick if he hand you 
any of those fairy tales about New York. He 
forgets he was born within a rock's heave of the 
old dump. **Where ignorance is bliss, ti's wise 
to be foolish" as old Abe Lincoln said, and Jim's 
the biggest fool I ever seen. How unlike my 
Mike he is. You, my dear, are like the plasid 
stream that runs through McCarthy's lots, not 
because you are always soaked, but because you 
always move along quietly, gently and easily, 
with only a gentle ripple of temper breaking 
acrost your course of life, now and then, caused 
by some Eyetalian calling you by your front 
name, or by not getting paid for over time. I 
am anxiously waiting until I see my boy tonight. 
I mention your name every once and a while to 
mother and father and they don't seem to be so 
hoztile to you as they were. Father said last 
night "Mike can't be such a bad fellow, after all, 
He's Irish." If a man is Irish father has a soft 



Aa IrisK-vroman. 19 

Spot in his Heart for him. ^h, Mike, what a 
soft spot I have in my heart for you. My heart 
is a regular jilly fish when it comes to softness 
for you. 

The goat is white, The bull-frog green 
Such love as mine, you've never seen." 
See Mike, I throw my thoughts into verse. 
Poetry is the respiration of love and my love 
bursts forth like a flower with its pedals out- 
stretched toward you. A kiss from 

Nora. 



THe Lo-ve Letters of 



LETTER 6. 

Mike, Mike, — 

Who was that girl Elen Casey saw you with 
last night after you left me ? She said you had 
her in the drug store filling her up with vanila 
sody. From the description I think it was 
Maggie Finnegan. Now, Mike what do you see 
in that chambermaid. She is a terrible looking 
piece of furniture. Her hair, oh, such hair, it 
looks like a shredded wheat biscuit, and her figure 
it reminds me of a glass of mixed ale. When 
did you meet her and did you escort her to her 
house, I mean her shanty. Did you ever seethe 
house she lives in, but of course I suppose you 
have, there is no telling where you go after you 
leave me. Her house is like a tool shed and is 
so small that they have to keep the wash tubs in 
the yard, if you could call it a yard, its more like 



A.1^ IrisH-wroxnan* 21 

a young dump. Did you have a date to meet 
her or did you happen to see her by chance ? 
Now that I remember you said you had been 
working hard all day and wanted to go home and 
get a good rest. So that is the way you rest is 
it? Do I love you, but there pet I am doing you 
an injustice. I know there is some mistake and 
that you did not mean anything. You told me 
last night that you loved me better than you did 
good old musty and I believe you. Such ferver 
as you put in the word could only come from a 
heart struck with cupid's dart. What do you 
think, father gave brother Jim a walloping good 
licking this morning. I can hear them whacks 
yet as they struck Jim just below the belt. You 
know, Mike, that shingles were made in the first 
place to be laid on the upper parts of houses, but 
often nowadays they are laid on the lower parts 
of boys and father did certainly lay them onto 
Jim. He used up four shingles before he finished 
the job, I don't know what the trouble was and 
I don't care as long as Jim got the licking. He's to 
fresh. He saw me walking with you last night 
and he asked me this morning who my gentlemen 
friend was with the crushed raspberry grass on 
the top of his koko. He was refering to your 
auborn hair, dear, and I gave him a freezing 
glance as only a woman can give. I wish he 
would go back to New York as I am afraid you 
and I will 'have trouble with him. He made 



THe Lo-ve ]Letters of 



me give ten cents this morning for "hush money" 
or he said he would tell father I was keeping 
steady company. 

(Now dearest, let me once more tell you that 
I am your own true girl and you are my own 
true boy. My love is like the brook of long fel- 
low. *' Onward, onward, half a legue onward" 
growing and swelling like a sponge in hot water. 
Love to my love from 

Nora. 



^^cfc. 



An IrisHivoinan. 



LETTER 7. 

My dear man Mike, — 

You have just this minute left me dearest and 
I hasten to sit down and write you a letter while 
my lips are still damp from your kisses.) Do you 
know Mike, you are just as centimental as I am. 
Who would think a dear old freckle faced hod 
carrier as centimental and yet my pet my sandy 
complected son of the green sod, is a regular 
lover like you read about in novels. /The tender 
words you purr into my ear give me that tremble 
spell again and again, and then again I can hear 
the sentences now as they came at me like lump 
sugar, I remember every word. Here are some of 
the tender ones you handed me tonighy Oh Nora 
" I'd rather be a Swede than think you did not 
love your Mikey." "Nora, my pet, when we 
are married I will let you have part of what you 
earn to buy your clothes with," and lots tenderer 



24 THe Lrcr* Lretters of 

than them came my way from your lips. There 
isn't room here to kronikle all the poetic talk 
you sift into my little ear. Oh, you are so gener- 
ous, Mike, so different from father J He is a 
regular german with his money. ^A^en the old 
man gets a dollar in his claw he holds onto it 
and never spends it until the woman's face that 
is stamped on one side is all covered over with 
wrinkles from age. He has had the grip or 
fluenza or something all this week and when I 
asked him what he took for it he told me he took 
a walk and a chew of Honest Long Cut every 
morning and a nap in the afternoon. He's to 
mean to buy medicine and if I didn't make my 
own spending money over the tub I would have 
nothing to wear but a smile and a worried look. 
Really I don't think the old man has spent 
;^i.25ina lump for the past six years, Poor 
mother she didn't have as good a thing in the 
old man when he was korting her as I have in 
my Mike. The old lady would have chocked to 
death before the old man would have skweezed 
out a nickle for a glass of sody water, but my 
Mike, he buys me ice cream sody only to easy, 
Well, Mike,mine, I guess it is about time for you 
just to be turning up Dolan's Alley now, I can 
see you before me with your manly chest pushed 
out until that ox-blood shirt looks like an awning 
and with that two inch pipe in your face, con- 
tented and happy, knowing that your Nora sits 



Aa IrisK-wrosaaA. 25 

in her boodwar thinking and dreaming of you. 
Oh you confident man. Or perhaps you stepped 
into Hooligan's to have a musty or two or three 
for a night cap. If you did you are just saying 
*' Here's how" and blowing the head off of it. 
Mike, dear, as you blow the light swansdown off 
of a good old musty ale, think of me dear, 
and remember that my heart is as light as the 
bead on a beer every time I look into your blue, 
Irish googoo eyes and see the love light shining 
there like an incandecent lamp. fOh, love, let 
my fluttering heart lay still. Goodnight. 

Your pet 

Nora. 



S8 TH« LfO-ve I^«tters of 

Letter 8. 
My always Mike — 

Just as soon as you left last night, Mike pet, 
I hurried and wrote you a letter and here goes 
another this afternoon because I have something 
to tell my darling. ^ Do you remember how last 
night your curly head rested on my shoulder 
and sweet words of love fluttered from me to you 
and from you back again to me and how we 
were unconshus of the busy restless world thatwas 
moving hither and thither on the next block 
to us. Of course you remember Well as your 
head rested there on my black shirt waste some 
of them aubom locks, them golden hairs, unfas- 
tened themselves from your dear crown and 
tenderly grasped my shirt waste and hung there. 
This afternoon when I put that waste on again 
I did not notice them but when I went down in 
the kitchen where mother was taking a pair of 
father's overhalls away from the goat the old 
lady looked up and saw them. She picked them 
off and I feered all sorts of feers but she only 
said 'Where on earth did you get this Christ- 
mas tree tinzel at this time of the year?" You 
can imagine what a releaf them words was to 
little Nora. She didnt know they were from 
the head of the dearest hod carrier that ever 
heaved a brick. VOh, how my heart beat for 
you Mike, my ownest of owns. It works over- 



A» IrisKmromai*. 27 

time every day now because when I think of 
you it thumps like a pile driver. I feel so light 
and gay and air^ Do you know, Mike, I think 
I would like to go on the stage. Wouldnt it be 
fine for you to love a real actress. Do you 
think Andrew Mack or Chansey Oilcat would 
give me work. I have been reading a novel 
about a actress and she was what they call a 
"soubrat." She sang and danced and every- 
body loved her and gave her things to eat and 
drink. Brother Jim says I am built like a brick 
chimbley, and to big to be a good soubrat and I 
guess I am a little bit too heavy to do much danc- 
ing but you know cousin Jim who is a jockey. 
Well, he says he can trim me down so I could 
weigh in at the right weight for an actress. 
Just now I weigh 2 1 1 pounds and he said if I 
took off a hundred I'd be all right. Shall I start 
in to trim, Mike, or do you think you will get a 
raise soon so that we can get joined by Father 
McGinnis and settle down. You know we can 
go to house keeping cheap, nowadays. A dol- 
lar down and a dollar a week until the van backs 
up to the house. That is the way the Kelleys 
furnished. The van backed up last week. 
Well, Mike dearest, in two hours I will meet 
you around the comer and we will once more 
talk over our future of bliss and I'll give you 
this letter then as I havent got a stamp. Until 
eight o'clock, I am with a flutter 
Your Nora. 



28 TKe I#ov« I««tt«rs o 

Letter 9. 
Mike, Mike. 

You know, Mike, that I live near the dump. 
Well, living so near to it as I have for so many- 
years, I have seen some funny things but you 
are the funniest I have ever seen. Do you 
know, my love, that you are treating a certain 
young maiden in a shameful way. And I am 
the maiden, young fellow. Drop to that. 
Here I have opened the front door of my young 
heart and taken you in only to feel that you 
are beginning to slide over to the side door 
and when you get over there you will slip out 
and around the comer to meet some other old 
hen on whom you will shower the rain of your 
love. Something inside me tells me that you 
are slowly but surely unhitching yourself from 
me and that the day is not far distant when you 
will shake a day-day to your devoted Nora and 
walk across the street and get Father McGinnis 
to couple you to some other woman. Your 
actions are what lead me to think this way, 
Mike dear, and goodness knows I hope I have 
dyeagnozed the simtons wrong. In the first 
place when I am with you you do not seem to 
have the same warm ardor you had week before 
last. You do not coo the same sweet words in 
my ear that you used to do. then another 
thing Mike, you used to write me a letter every 
two days. Here it has been three days and a 
half without a line. Now some real centimen- 



An IrisKiMToman. 



tal lovers write every day and sometimes they 
even write to each other like they take medi- 
cine — after each meal, but I never asked you 
to do that. Once every two days suited me 
because it always takes me two days to read 
your letters — carrying the hod gives you an 
unsteady hand and you do not write a very even 
hand, but I worked your last one out in a day 
and a half and have been looking anshusly for 
another every day but none turns up. Of 
conrse I saw you last night, but I expected a 
letter, to, never the less. Then again I noticed 
last evening that you were not the same Mike, 
the same dear loving boy with the auborn hair, 
that you was once. Two weeks ago the heat 
of Fyour love would have fried eggs but last nighL 
you seemed more like a pitcher of ice-waterj 
It aint right, Mike my pet, it aint right to lead 
an unsuspected young thing like me on and 
then pass the free ice fund to her. I have lost 
weight worrying about it and about not getting 
a letter today. I have dropped three pounds 
and am now down to 208. Its an outrage, so it 
is, so it is. Tell me that it is a mistake Mike 
and that you are not going to spem me. If you 
dont I shall go wild. Such a headache beats in 
my little brain now that I can hardly stand it 
and feel that if another day passes without some 
loving words I shall have to write to the N. Y. 
Journal and ask Eller Wheeler Wilcox what 
t o do. Your pet. Nora. 



30 THe Lrov-e Letters of 

Letter io. 
Oh, Mike — 

Now I know, Mike, Mike, why it is that your 
love for me is getting the chills. Ellen O'Brien 
told me and Mrs. Grundy told her. Now I 
dont know who this Mrs. Grundy is but Ellen 
says that the woman knows for a fact that you 
are in love with and paying attention to Maggie 
Finnegan. The Grundy woman said you were 
with her three nights last week and them was 
the three nights you did not come to see me. 
I'm on, Mike, I'm on. Oh, what shall I do. 
I am not so sore to think that you are not for 
me any more as I am to think that a frozen face 
like the Finnegan girl could snatch my pray 
from me. Thats what puts my tender heart 
through the wringer. And such a looking piece 
of calico as she is to. Now I'll admit I'm no 
stunning Back Bay beauty myself but Miss 
Finnegan — Oh my, oh my, — she never could 
get close enough to a prize in a beauty show to 
know that there was one. She might draw a 
prize at a food fair as a heavy weight lobster — 
but oh that face. And figure — tie a rope 
around a sack full of potatoes and you have her 
just as she is. She looks like a number 8 with 
a cheap dress on. I dont see how you could 
fall out of love with me and into love with her 
so quick unless it is because she wears red silk 



Aa IrisH-wroman. 31 

shoe laces. Is it that Mike? If that's all you 
should have loved me two days longer because 
as soon as Mrs. Smith pays me the money she 
owes me for wash I am going to get lavendef 
laces and put them in my boots with the bows 
at the toes. Then no girl at the Hod Carriers 
Picnic would be better dressed than me. But 
no you are impashunt and you let your love grow 
froze a few days to soon. And such a voice as 
that Finnegan thing uses when she tries to talk. 
She sounds like the canning factory whistle 
when the factory opens up after a three months 
shut down. She talks so horse that when you 
hear her at a distance you think she is coughfin. 
And how did she get her larux in such a condi- 
tion that her bronkal tubes wont work right — 
why you know, Mike. You know. She was a 
cheap waiter in a cheap sandwich depo on a 
cheap street down town and she lost her voice 
yelling "Ham" and **Draw one" and**boil two 
meedyum." Thats how she did it so she did 
and still you love her and let her take you away 
from me after I had worked so hard evenings 
to show you that I needed you for my Lord and 
master. Never mind Mike, take your chop 
house has been and fairy chambermaid, take her 
and be happy. Whatever you may do there 
will always be a kozy corner in my young heart 
for you. I will forget my grief by doing as all 
romantic maidens do after a "affair de cur" that 



32 TH« Lov* I^otters of 

turns out to be on the bum. I will enlist in a 
comic opry chorus so fare the well and so long, 
sweetheart that was. 

Yours — onst 

Nora. 



MAR 8 1905i 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

„ „ .iilill 

018 378 313 




